


Welcome to Zaofu

by ScarlettEyes



Series: Magnetism [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Child Reader, Childhood, Childhood Friends, Earthbender reader, Fire Nation reader, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Kuvira gets a real friend because she really needs one, Metalbender reader, Opal is an annoying mean girl, Reader is physically and aesthetically nondescript, but she has an established backstory and strong personality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettEyes/pseuds/ScarlettEyes
Summary: “I need an earthbending teacher,” you said after the silence started getting awkward. “Can you teach me?”Kuvira looked more surprised than anything, but nodded carefully.“You might want to start with the basics if you don’t want to destroy anything,” she said in her best impression of Suyin’s voice.“And what if I do?”“Do what?”“Want to destroy things.”A smile spread across Kuvira’s face.“You’ll fix them afterward, right?” you asked.She pretended to think about it, stroking her chin and staring off into space.“Yeah. I’ll fix them afterward.”
Relationships: Kuvira (Avatar) & Reader, Kuvira (Avatar)/Reader, Kuvira (Avatar)/Reader (friendship)
Series: Magnetism [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852411
Comments: 8
Kudos: 79





	Welcome to Zaofu

**Author's Note:**

> No warnings on this one. This is the start of a long journey, but for now your relationship is just a wholesome childhood friendship!
> 
> I don't interact much with 7-8 year olds so I apologize if the characters don't quite sound their age.

You weren’t supposed to be here. You were supposed to be at home, in the Fire Nation, practicing firebending forms, not riding a futuristic-looking maglev train straight into the heart of a foreign city you didn’t recognize. You weren’t supposed to have been an earthbender, but apparently the universe hated you and there was nothing you could do about it. Or perhaps it was just your father who hated you, but what did it matter.

The interior of the train was all whites and greys, a sanitary emptiness that made you miss home more than ever. You sat in one of the greyish metal benches and leaned your head against the train window. Your father stood, despite the fact that the train was mostly empty. His gaze was turned resolutely toward the burgeoning metal city that was slowly coming into view.

“Why do we have to go to Zaofu?” you asked, eyes wide and brimming with tears.

“It’s a good investment, and their leader, Suyin Beifong, offered to teach you earthbending,” he replied matter of factly, patting you softly on your head.

“I want to go home,” you pouted, moving across the train to sit on the other side just so your head was out of patting reach.

“This is our new home.” The tone in his voice was filled with finality, and you knew not to argue. A single tear slipped down your cheek and you wished you were a waterbender so that you could remove it discreetly, or perhaps even heal the ache in your heart. Or perhaps a firebender, so you could have stayed home and trained. Or an airbender, to fly away and escape this world. Anything but an earthbender.

The world outside the train window was blurry and foreign. You had to admit it piqued your curiosity, but it wasn’t home. It would never be.

The arrival in Zaofu was surprisingly anticlimactic. The brakes were completely silent, and the train station seemed far away from the actual city itself, which was really just one metal building in the middle of nowhere. Your father took your hand and led you off the train, practically dragging you onto the platform. A woman about the same age as your father stood waiting, and you looked up at her with a curious but apprehensive gaze.

“Welcome to Zaofu, and thank you so much for the generous investment. I look forward to working with you in making this the most safe and modern city the world has to offer,” she said, extending a hand for your father to shake.

“Thank you Mrs. Beifong. I admire your ambition and see the huge potential in your vision. It’s an honor to be a part of it,” he responded, shaking her hand firmly.

You humphed and sat down on the floor of the platform, not noticing that the woman, Mrs. Beifong, had turned her attention to you. Your father gave you a couple rough taps on your shoulder and pointed to her. You looked up to meet striking green eyes.

“What?”

“What’s your name, sweetheart? I’m Suyin,” the woman stated, offering her hand to you.

Out of pure ingrained Fire Nation courtesy, you shook her hand and gave her your name.

“How old are you?”

“Seven and a half,” you mumbled, emphasizing the half bit. That half meant a lot to you.

“Then stand up and act your age. You’re not a toddler anymore,” your father interjected.

You stood slowly and glared at him, but Suyin put a comforting hand on your shoulder.

“It’s ok. She needs to adjust to her new home,” Zaofu’s matriarch said, her voice soft and reassuring.

If it was possible for you to glare harder, you would have.

“I have children about your age,” she said with a smile, squeezing your shoulder. “Opal’s seven and she’d love a new friend like you. Come on, you want to meet her?”

You shook your head, but your father shot you a look that told you that he was at his limit and you complied.

“Sure.” The smile you plastered to your face was fake but believable and Suyin returned it in kind. You flicked your wrist in a basic firebending technique, hoping that a flame would leap out of your hand and give your father a reason to move back home.

She led you and your father to a large automobile with giant wheels, and told you to get in. You obeyed silently, strapping yourself into the back seat as your father sat in the passenger seat up front next to Suyin.

Their conversation was boring and consisted mostly of finances, architectural plans, and building codes, so you tuned it out. The city itself was surprisingly small, but each building gleamed in the sun, the metal panels perfectly formed into smooth shapes. The streets were clean and quiet, and cars on the roads followed traffic rules perfectly. There was none of the hustle and bustle of Capital City, no honking horns, no risk-taking bikers trying to squeeze through chaotic traffic. You wondered how anyone could call this home, let alone you, but you had to admit that it was beautiful in a way. The buildings got taller as the car drove to the center of the city. You vaguely recalled something about a dome that would cover the city at night, which would explain the height distribution of the buildings, and you wondered what it would be like to sleep feeling trapped under a metal dome.

The car stopped at a large estate not unlike the one you lived in at home, but of course this one was decorated in typical Zaofu style: with lots and lots of metal. Your mouth fell open of its own accord when you stepped inside. The ceilings were unimaginably high and everything about the place screamed of the future. Suyin was eagerly describing the new construction methods she and her husband had developed in order to build this mansion, and your father was smiling and nodding as he always did when he surveyed his own real estate investments. After Suyin finished with her speech, she cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, “Everyone, come meet our new friends from the Fire Nation!”

The first person to show up was her husband, Baatar, who introduced himself to your father and your father only. Next were youngest twins Wing and Wei, then Baatar Jr., then Huan, and finally, Opal. Suyin introduced each of her children with pride. They all looked apprehensively at your father, then at you. Opal approached first, introducing herself with a bright smile and a confident attitude. You were about to introduce yourself in return when Suyin yelled again.

“Kuvira, you too!”

Opal rolled her eyes and whispered conspiratorially in your ear that Kuvira didn’t matter anyway. You glanced over Opal’s shoulder to see a girl about your age walking toward Suyin at a slow and uncertain pace.

“This is Kuvira. She’s the newest addition to our family,” Suyin explained. You glanced back at Wing and Wei, who looked much younger, with a questioning expression.

“She’s adopted,” the matriarch adds.

Opal spares a quick look back at her mother before offering you her hand.

“Forget her. Come on, let’s play!”

You let her lead you to her room, which prominently featured a large but broken dollhouse, which she tried to block from your view by standing right in front of it.

“Wanna see my doll collection?” Opal asked, gesturing to a large platinum-locked box in the corner of her room.

“Sure. We can dress them up as soldiers and have them fight in the war,” you suggested, surveying the damage of the dollhouse.

“What war?”

Opal turned the key to the chest and the lock clicked open.

“The war that made their house explode! A giant weapon exploded the whole house in a giant fiery blast! Maybe it was the Fire Nation, with its strongest firebenders making one big fireball together. Ooh, maybe… maybe it was a beam of pure spirit energy!”

Your brain, heavy with new scientific knowledge from the physics and chemistry classes your father had made you take back in the Fire Nation, was running wild with ideas.

“Everything’s fine and they’re all happy together!” Opal shouted at you, eyebrows knitted together in consternation. “The dollhouse wouldn’t be broken if Kuvira hadn’t been a big meanie.”

“Maybe Kuvira had a beam of pure spirit energy.”

“Well if she did, she’d kill us all. She’s the worst.”

At that, you heard the sound of retreating footsteps and muffled sobbing and realized that there had been someone listening just past the threshold of the door. Opal turned back to the now open chest full of dolls and picked out her favorites as if she hadn’t heard anything.

“Did you hear that?” you asked. “I should check if they’re ok.”

“It’s just Kuvira. She’s always jealous when I get to play and she can’t. Good riddance.”

“I should still check if she’s ok. She sounded really sad.”

“Forget about her. She’s not even my real sister. Let’s just get back to playing.”

After a moment of contemplation, you decide to follow Kuvira’s footsteps. Opal tried in vain to entice you with a particularly expensive doll replica of Avatar Kyoshi, but you were already gone.

You followed the soft little footsteps all the way to a small room filled with meteorites of all sizes and shapes. Kuvira sat in the corner, sniffling and bending a small chunk of meteorite with surprising precision. She looked up at you with a strong, defiant gaze, and sharpened the meteorite into a thin blade pointed straight at you.

“I’m sorry,” you said. The words felt empty and inadequate, so you cautiously approached her and sat a few feet away. “I don’t know what happened, but what she said was really mean.”

“Those aren’t her dolls and dollhouse, they’re ours,” Kuvira explained quietly as she bent the meteorite into a perfect sphere. “She never lets me have a turn.”

You weren’t quite sure what to say to that, so you just scooted closer to her and watched her metalbend for a few moments. Her movements were confident and mesmerizing, and the meteorite bended to her will. You looked down at your own hands, then at the nearest meteorite, then focused your energy and tried to replicate her hand motions. The meteorite didn’t budge and you sighed, looking down at your feet.

“You have to feel the earth in the meteorite.”

You glanced up at Kuvira.

“Feel the pieces of earth inside the metal and use them to move it,” she clarified.

You took a deep breath and reached out to the meteorite, feeling your innate spiritual connection with the particles within it. Then, you pushed. The meteorite trembled, then fell on the floor, shattering loudly into tiny pieces. You gasped and covered your mouth with your hands. Kuvira smiled at you.

“You did it!”

“But I destroyed it!”

She easily picked it up, reformed it, and placed it back on its stand as if nothing had happened. You stared at her as she did, in awe of her abilities. She had a gift for this. Of all of the earthbenders and even professional metalbenders you had observed after discovering your own bending, none of them had her precision, and she was only 8 years old.

“I need an earthbending teacher,” you said after the silence started getting awkward. “Can you teach me?”

She looked more surprised than anything, but nodded carefully.

“You might want to start with the basics if you don’t want to destroy anything,” she said in her best impression of Suyin’s voice.

“And what if I do?”

“Do what?”

“Want to destroy things.”

A smile spread across Kuvira’s face.

“You’ll fix them afterward, right?” you asked.

She pretended to think about it, stroking her chin and staring off into space.

“Yeah. I’ll fix them afterward.”

You pushed the meteorite off of its stand again, and she mimicked you, knocking the biggest one off of its giant pedestal. Soon, the room was a mess of shattered meteorites and the two of you were laughing uncontrollably.

“This is some real astronomical damage,” you remarked after every single meteorite was well and truly smashed.

That statement in and of itself led to even more laughter, which was rudely interrupted by Suyin knocking loudly on the door and asking if everything was ok.

“Fix it!” you whispered loudly at Kuvira, who was already reforming each meteorite and placing them gently back in their displays.

“Everything’s fine!”

Suyin opened the door anyway, but was faced with a completely untouched room and two young girls grinning like idiots. She sighed, took a deep breath, and told the two of you to play with something else.

“I set up pai sho in the living room,” she said. “I know it’s popular in the Fire Nation. You could teach Kuvira how to play.”

You beckoned your new friend to follow you, and she did. The two of you sat down on opposing sides of a giant pai sho board with metal pieces engraved in intricate detail. Explaining the rules took almost half an hour, because it was a complicated game, but Kuvira listened with rapt interest as you described the various ways each piece could move and how the winner was decided. When you were finally satisfied enough with her understanding of the game to start, you flipped a coin to decide who would go first.

“Tails,” Kuvira called as the coin sailed through the air. It landed tails. You didn’t know this yet, but you would later learn that she nudged the coin in midair so that it would always fall in her favor. Luckily for you this round, she didn’t know that going first was actually a disadvantage.

Your victory was swift and decisive, as you had been playing this game ever since you could walk, while she only had a shaky grasp of the basic rules. Instead of getting angry, getting bored, or giving up, she challenged you to a rematch with fire in her eyes. You obliged, and this time she called the coin toss incorrectly. She ended up making an endgame mistake that she instantly regretted and you jumped on the opportunity, securing another victory but at a much smaller margin. By the third round, Kuvira had a clear understanding of your strategy and sneakily pulled a white lotus gambit to steal a victory. It was your first loss in years, and you were determined to get her back. The two of you were more or less evenly matched, neck to neck in victories once Kuvira fully got the hang of the game, and it took multiple dinner calls and a personal visit from your father to end the tournament. You both declared the result a tie, though you technically held the lead due to the first two games where Kuvira was still learning how everything worked.

Suyin had saved you a spot at the dinner table between Opal and Kuvira. You sat staring at the strange lack of utensils and plates. There was only a spoon per person, which would have been unacceptable back in your Fire Nation home, where everything had to be eaten with chopsticks.

“Is this a one course meal?” you ask timidly.

“No, you eat the appetizer with your hands,” Opal replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

You looked down at your hands and then at the chef, who was placing a vegetable wrap in front of you.

“Kuvira, be patient,” Suyin admonished from across the table as the girl in question opened her mouth to take her first bite.

You smiled politely as you stared at the food in front of you, wondering if eating food with one’s hands was an Earth Kingdom thing, a Zaofu thing, or an everyone-else-but-your-pretentious-conservative-family thing. After the food had made its way in front of everyone at the table, Suyin gave the signal to begin eating. You grabbed the wrap and quickly took a bite. It tasted unlike anything you had eaten before, but it was enjoyable enough and you were famished from the journey. As you ate, you noticed your father cautiously picking at his food with his spoon and failing miserably at consuming any of it.

“You can’t eat it with a spoon,” you told him, leaning over the table so he would notice you.

He sighed and muttered something angry under his breath.

Luckily for you, the next course was a soup, which you consumed quickly and easily with the provided metal spoon. Kuvira ate her soup without even touching the spoon, using her metalbending to manipulate the spoon instead of her hands.

“Showoff,” Opal snapped.

“You’re just jealous,” Kuvira snapped back.

You raised your hand to attempt the levitating spoon trick only to be interrupted by your father yelling “Don’t you dare!”

He was right, of course. You had no control over your earthbending, let alone metalbending, and would have likely caused a soup-filled disaster, but you still pouted as you grabbed the spoon normally and finished your meal.

“It’s not that hard,” Kuvira remarked. “I can teach you and you’ll be a master metalbender in no time.”

She hadn’t yet learned that certain things came much more easily to her than they did to almost anyone else in the world.

“You’re not a master metalbender,” Opal said.

“You’re not a metalbender at all,” you retorted, eliciting a small smile from Kuvira.

Dessert was an extravagant affair, featuring a giant cake shaped like Zaofu’s tallest building and decorated with silver edible glitter. The cake itself tasted mediocre, but you took a few bites of it anyway out of politeness. The Baatars used it as an excuse to gush about architecture to your father, who was once again conducting his standard professional smile-and-nod routine in response. The large open windows showed a clear view of the Zaofu sunset, which was enhanced by the reflectiveness of the cityscape. You had to admit that, though it wasn’t home, it was beautiful.

“The sky’s pretty tonight,” you said, trying to start some conversation between the children at the table.

“The sky’s the same as it always is,” Wing replied, mouth full of cake.

Wei quickly stepped in with, “She’s never seen it before.”

“Everyone’s seen the sky before.”

“Not like this. The Fire Nation buildings are all red, so the sky also being red isn’t as special,” you explained.

“Just wait until you see the domes closing,” Opal said, nudging you on the shoulder. “It’s the coolest thing ever.”

Wing and Wei nodded and hummed their agreement.

“It’s just metalbending,” Kuvira replied. “Besides, the domes block out the outside.”

“Is that bad?” Opal asked, raising her voice slightly.

Kuvira dug her heels in. “Yeah. We need to see the world and the world needs to see us. I don’t want us to be stuck in the middle of nowhere forever.”

“Neither do I,” you interjected, looking at Kuvira. “The world is so big and I want to see it all.”

Opal groaned and stabbed angrily at her cake. You offered the rest of yours to Kuvira.

Your father wanted you to go straight to bed after dinner, but you begged him to let you see the domes close and he relented. The Beifongs led you to the patio of their manor and you watched as huge metal panels folded up to block the sky, sealing the city of Zaofu for the night. You already knew you would miss the feeling of falling asleep looking out the window at the stars that night, but there was something grand and awe-inspiring about the dome.

You tapped Opal on the shoulder.

“Ok, you’re right. This is pretty cool. I’ll miss the stars though.”

“You’ll get used to it. It’s safer like this.”

The panels groaned as they fell into their locked positions, and the adults quickly ushered you to your room. The room itself was completely bare and undecorated. A twin bed sat in the corner furthest from the door, and a single window-door revealed a balcony and a view of the city. This didn’t feel one bit like home. You flopped onto the bed, which was harder than the one back home, and wrapped yourself in the comforter, which was warmer and thicker than the one back home. Closing your eyes, you tried to shut out the world.

Tap tap tap.

Your eyes snapped open and you shot up in your bed to see Kuvira tapping at your balcony door. You opened it a crack.

“Want to see something?”

“What?” you asked in a whisper.

“Just come on!”

You stepped out onto the balcony, closing the door behind you as she beckoned you toward the railing.

“I am not jumping,” you hissed as she grabbed the railing.

“Do you trust me?”

“No.”

With a swing of her arm, the balcony’s stone floor lurched upward, sending both of you flying through the air. You wanted to scream but no sound came out. You stared as the ground came up to meet you, catch you, and softly set you down. Kuvira landed on her feet with a confident smirk. You were sprawled rather unceremoniously on a patch of now disrupted earth, trying to catch your breath.

“Don’t ever do that again,” you said in the most authoritative voice you could muster.

“No promises.”

Kuvira offered a hand to help you up, and dragged you to an official-looking platinum door with a keypad lock.

“Are you sure we’re supposed to be here?” you asked as she punched numbers into the keypad.

“Not yet, but I will be supposed to be here.”

You gave her a puzzled look. The keypad rejected the code she put in, displaying on its screen that any further inaccurate passcode attempts within the next 24 hours would sound the city alarms.

“No to 0012,” she muttered. “I’ll try 0013 tomorrow night.”

“What is this place?” You hoped the more specific question would result in a more specific answer.

“This is the elevator to the top of the dome. Only the captain of the guard has the password, but if you have it, you can take the elevator all the way up and see the world from super high up,” she explained.

“There are ten thousand possible passcodes with four numbers in them. You’ll be captain of the guard before you try them all.”

“I just wanted to show you something cooler than Opal’s fancy Kyoshi doll,” she sighed, looking down.

“That’s ok. We’ll get to go up there eventually,” you said, placing your hand on her shoulder.

She smiled softly at you, and you smiled back.

By the time you managed to sneak back into your room, it was way past your bedtime, and you fell asleep as soon as your head hit the pillow.

The next morning, you woke to your father banging on your door screaming at you to wake up. You reluctantly dragged yourself out of bed, got ready, and headed downstairs for breakfast. Most of the people in the house had already finished eating by the time you arrived. Kuvira was already setting up a game of pai sho (“Eat faster so I can win our rematch!”), Opal was drawing something in a notebook (“Shut up Kuvira, I’m trying to focus!”), Baatar Jr. and Sr. were discussing plans for a new building (“Both of you, shut up, we’re trying to focus on actually important stuff!”), Suyin and your father were discussing finances (“Let’s take this outside, shall we?”), Wing and Wei were outside throwing metal discs at each other (“Sorry mom, we’ll move to the eastern pavilion!”), and Huan was building little metal sculptures on the eastern pavilion (“You’re ruining my artistic flow!”).

You had just finished inhaling your breakfast when your father walked over.

“I left some bank statements in storage back home thinking I wouldn’t need them but I do. I know you desperately wanted to go home yesterday, so if you want to come back with me and properly say goodbye to the Fire Nation, you can.”

“No thanks. I have a tournament to win.”


End file.
